How did Hitler get so many followers?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rise+of+hitler
I don't quite mean how he acquired power, but I am looking for an exact reason how he got so many people to believe in his cause. Yes, these 2 are probably interrelated, but an exact reason would be helpful. For example, I think I heard that Hitler sort of 'brainwashed' the Nazi soldiers. Is that true?
Check this site from Writeacher's recommendation. Note the section about why the people supported Hitler.
http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/lessons/riseofhitler/index.htm
Sure, Hitler promised those people those things. But how did they believe that killing Jews would solve the problems? Yes, I know the Jews were scapegoats. But how/why would that fix anything and how could he blame the Jews?
The Jews had been scapegoats for hundreds of years in Europe. They had been blamed for killing Christ and been reviled as money-lenders. Most lived in isolated neighborhoods and had not been thoroughly assimilated into the larger communities.
When Hitler blamed the Jews, he was continuing a long tradition. When he told millions of Germans that the Jews were the cause of their problems, it was easy for many of them to believe all sorts of evil from Jews. Also -- remember his original plan was just to force Jews to leave Germany. When they found it difficult to emigrate -- either from lack of money or lack of another country to allow them in -- it was then that the Nazis began putting them in labor camps. The Final Solution wasn't put into effect until 1942, and it's likely that the majority of non-Jewish Germans did not know about this fiendish plan.
Also -- the U.S. was one of the countries with a very low quota for Jews. Most who applied to emigrate to the U.S. were turned down. We too had a history of discrimination against Jews.
Did Hitler really believe the Jews were the source of the problems and that killing them would solve anything?
Did you read any of the biographies of Hitler? He truly believed it. You should read a good biography to find out the extent of his beliefs -- and why he believed these things.
I doubt if Hitler thought that the Jews were the sole source of their problems. However, when he couldn't deport them and they wouldn't leave, killing them seemed in his warped mind to be his only option for getting rid of them. He was a megalomaniac who wanted Germany to be racially pure.
Analogies can be drawn between the Nazis' treatment of the Jews and the U.S. getting rid of American Indians, Serbs trying to get rid of other ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia, Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis trying to obliterate each other, and various tribal and ethnic cleansing in Africa.